People often want to select, view, and/or interact with data in a database in a visual, structured manner. Various programs, such as Microsoft Excel, from Microsoft Corporation of Redmond Wash., allow a user to show data in a statistical manner, but that type of graph does not allow the viewer to see the structure of the data within the database.
In other cases, the visualization does show the structure, but in a relatively flat way. For example, the data visualization tool Many Eyes, provided by International Business Machines Corporation of Armonk N.Y., provides several types of visualizations, including a “network diagram,” which depicts an interconnected graph of nodes. For another example, the graphing tool Gruff, provided by Franz Inc. of Oakland, Calif., allows a user to enter a standard, complete textual query and place the results in a graph. The user can click on a graphed result and see the objects from the database that are related to that result via predefined relationships.
In some cases, it is possible to create more detailed visualizations, for example, by manually constructing a diagram, using a drawing software program, and/or writing special-purpose software to obtain a particular set of data and layout a graph. For example, a software program such as Visio, provided by Microsoft Corporation of Redmond Wash., may enable a user to manually lay out a graph of objects with object labels populated with data from a data source, such as a database. There are also products that provide database graphing and report generation facilities.
However, existing solutions may fail to enable a user to easily explore the structure of the data in relational database, including following particular items of data and/or comparing various branching pathways throughout various tables in a database or set of databases.